


The Blinded Stars

by VespidaeQueen



Series: The Gravity Well [2]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Adventure, Developing Relationship, F/M, Gen, Missing Scenes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-03
Updated: 2014-08-09
Packaged: 2017-10-19 03:49:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/196541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VespidaeQueen/pseuds/VespidaeQueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anders never thought that he would return to the Deep Roads. But then, there are a lot of things that he never thought he would do again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written in 2011 and posted in an uncomplete state on Livejournal. I have since finished the story and edited the first chapters so as to flow better with the narrative of The Gravity Well series. While this story covers the events of the Deep Roads expedition, I have attempted to use as little in-game dialogue as possible, and the main focus is upon character interaction and moments not seen or not greatly developed in-game. This story also lays some of the foundation for future stories in The Gravity Well.
> 
> Several things to take note of: the particular Hawke in this story is a mage named Ismat. The way she is referred to changes depending on perspective - for example, she thinks of herself as 'Hawke,' but Carver thinks of her as 'sister' or 'Ismat'.
> 
> There are references to a Surana (Ren), an Amell (Na'im), and a Warden-Commander Tabris (Kiva). For the purposes of this story, Surana and Amell both knew Anders during his time at the Circle, though neither of them became the Hero of Ferelden.

Hawke is standing in his clinic's doorway again, just sort of hanging there with one hand resting lightly on the rotting wood of the door.

He ignores her for awhile, because he has _work_ to do. Besides, she normally shows up to either drag him off on some inane quest or to chatter his ear off, both of which are distracting and _not_ conducive to healing the sick and injured of Kirkwall.

To her credit, she doesn't actually start trying to get his attention until _after_ he has finished with the last few patients of the day. At least, she doesn't _try_ to get his attention, but she is distraction in the sense that she keeps wavering about at the front of his clinic and it's hard _not_ to notice her.

"It's not like you to keep quiet for so long," he says in way of greeting and she makes a face at him, her mouth scrunching up to the side in displeasure.

"I _do_ actually know when not to distract someone. Like when someone is trying to...fix whatever you were just fixing." She waves a hand before her in a swishing motion that is probably supposed to suggest a healing spell.

"Infected dog bite," he says as he heats water in a cracked and stained basin beside him until it boils. He lets it boil for a few moments, then cools it with ice before he begins washing blood off his hands. Hawke wrinkles her nose in distaste, and he assumes it's at the mention of the injury because his clinic is _very_ clean for being in Darktown, _thank you very much._

"That does _not_ sound pleasant."

"Not really." He notices then that what she's eyeing the basin of water, and that's when he remembers that she doesn't use fire or ice magic. She's probably never seen that particular trick for making sure water isn't contaminated before, and he has to assume that she's _certainly_ never used it herself. "Did you come here for something, or just to watch me work?"

"Well, I have this terrible burning rash..." she says and then _grins_ at the look on his face. "I'm _joking_ , Anders, though it's good to know what reaction I'd get from you if I _did_ come to you with that particular problem.  _Anyway_ , I'm here for _two_ reasons." She holds up two fingers as she speaks; he's always intrigued by just how many gestures she can make during a single conversation. " _One_ , Varric told me to tell _you_ that he's buying drinks for everyone at the Hanged Man tonight and that you should come. Oh, and that if you don't show up he's going to come down here and make you eat because you're getting too skinny again and he's buying dinner, too."

"What?"

She shrugs. "That's what he said. I may have embellished the _slightest_ bit. And cut out at least three uses of  'Blondie'."

Anders shakes his head slowly. He doesn't even want to try to figure out which bits are her embellishments – the dwarf does enough of that in general. "Okay, dinner. I can do that. Why didn't he come down here and talk to me himself?"

"Well, that's where my other reason sort of comes into play." The amused smile that has been playing on her lips for the past moments slides away and leaves an expression that contains a far greater amount of trepidation. "I have something to ask you."

It's probably for his help on another  _quest_ for gold. She's been saving money for as long as he's known her, doing any job that will put just a little bit more silver in her pockets. And since she _cannot_ heal – _that was Bethany's thing_ , she had told him once, _I took after dad with the sparky electricity stuff_ – he's more often than not talked into coming along.

Justice was not a huge fan of this at first, but she _is_ a mage and she _had_ helped him – even if that had gone _terribly_ and had nearly torn his heart in two – and she _did_ try to help apostates as often as she could. Eventually, the spirit had settled into a sort of mildly disapproving presence in the back of his mind.

"Well?" he finally has to say, because she just keeps standing there in a silence, chewing on her bottom lip. "What did you want to ask me?"

"Ah," she starts, stalls, bites her lip again. "I guess everyone is going to know this soon enough anyway, but I managed to get enough money together for the expedition. And Varric and I have let Bartrand know that we've got an entrance into the Deep Roads, so we're heading out next week if everything goes as planned, and I was wondering-"

 _Oh_.

Oh, _shit_.

"No," he says harshly, not even waiting for her to finish speaking. "I won't do it."

"I hadn't even finished asking you!"

There is no _way_ he'll be going down there again. "You were going to ask me if I would go with you."

Hawke shifts a bit in place, looking a little awkward and a little frustrated, and maybe a little upset. "Well, _yes_. You're the only warden I know and-"

" _No_." It's only when she takes a half step backward that he realizes that Justice has begun to bleed out – he should be _used_ to this by now, how the more irritated he gets the harder it is to control – and his shoulders slump slightly as he raises a hand to shield his eyes, breathing as calmly as he can.

"All right," she says. "Okay. I'm sorry I asked."

 _Sorry I started glowing_ , he thinks of saying, but doesn't. He's apologized for that multiple times now.

It's a wonder that Hawke hasn't run screaming or started permanently avoiding his clinic by now. Hasn't started avoiding  _him._

"Just...forget I said anything." Hawke runs a hand through her hair nervously, not looking at him. They spend the next few moments not looking at one another, him searching awkwardly for something to say, her being far too quiet for her normally loud self.

"You should still come to the Hanged Man," she finally says. "I wouldn't underestimate Varric. He'll find a way to get you there regardless of whether you want to show up or not."

Anders gives a small laugh. "Like sending distracting apostates to drag me out of my clinic?"

"Something like that. Remember,  _tonight_. We'll all be expecting you."

He cannot help but smile back, even if he still feels shock from her asking him on the expedition. "I'll make sure not to disappoint."

Hawke looks at him and he is glad to see that she is smiling now. "You never do," she says, and he's pretty certain that's not entirely true, but he's not about to correct her.

 

*

 

The problem isn't that he doesn't want to go to the Deep Roads, because he doesn't. He has no desire to go back there ever again, and _that_ isn't going to change. The _problem_ is that, ever since Hawke brought them up, he cannot stop thinking about them.

His first experience with the Deep Roads had _also_ been his first experience with those nasty insect-like darkspawn who had kept trying to chew off the Warden-Commander's face. He'd been rather lucky to have been hanging towards the back of the group during that first run in, but by the time they had gotten out of Kal'Hirol he had been gnawed on several times. And that wasn't even mentioning the stale air, the overabundance of raw lyrium that had made his magic powerful to the point of being dangerous, and the constant pull of darkspawn at the edge of his thoughts.

It had not been a pleasant experience, and it was one that he had repeated far too many times since then – granted, the latter trips had _not_ involved the Mother's blighted _Children_. Mostly.

And he would have been perfectly happy to _never_ go there again, except now he has a _friend_ – _and isn't that odd, she's somehow become a_ friend _that he desperately doesn't want to lose_ – going down there _without_ a warden and with _no_ way of knowing if darkspawn were hiding right around the corner.

So he thinks and argues with himself – and with Justice, who's disapproval at the simple _idea_ of this whole thing is incredibly evident – and spends the better part of two days being half distracted by it before he finally makes up his mind.

It doesn't take long to get to Lowtown, and even in the evening light it is easy to find her home. He's been there a few times, normally after one run in with mercenaries or another when they all needed patching up, and once because that dog of hers had eaten something odd and she had panicked. 

He'd held off on telling her that he was a cat person, _thank you very much_ , and that dogs were far too slobbery for his taste, but she had been so terribly worried about the mabari that he had held his tongue. The dog hadn't actually be _ill_ , just, well, _sick_ , in the sense that there had been a fair amount of clean up afterward and Hawke had been terribly apologetic.

He pauses on the stairs, hesitating yet again. He is so completely uncertain of his decision – they both are, the like minds of Justice and Anders uncertain of how this could possibly apply to the greater picture.

 _She is a mage_ , he thinks. _She is a good person. She is a paragon of what a mage should be, and if she stays safe and continues to help us, then it will aid the cause_.

It is a weak argument, to say the least, but it is enough to ease at least a little of his doubt and allows him to complete the last few steps up to the door. Then he pauses even _longer_ before he raises a hand and knocks.

It takes a moment, but eventually the door opens. To his chagrin, it's not Hawke who answers, but _Carver_ , and his appearance is enough for doubt and irritation to well up and he nearly calls this entire thing off.

Justice does not like Carver, and Anders does not like him, and so together they have less than kind feelings for the boy. But Carver is Hawke's _brother_ , and Hawke is... _important_ , and so he tries to be civil around the younger man as much as possible.

"What are you doing here?" Carver says, the door only partway open, and the boy standing in such a way that Anders gets the very strong impression that he is _not_ welcome inside.

"I'm looking for Hawke," he says.

"Of course you are." Carver is glowering at him, which is not at all unusual. "Well, she's not here."

"Could you...tell her that I came by?"

"You can tell her yourself. She's probably at the Hanged Man with Isabela."

There is no reason to stay after that, and Carver shuts the door in his face.

 

*

 

Hawke is a funny drunk. This is something that Isabela has discovered over the past few months, and it has brought her no small measure of amusement. Granted, Hawke isn't the 'half a pint and then completely gone' sort, but when she finally does get enough alcohol in her, she turns into a giggling, babbling mess who apologizes far too much. Neither of them is drunk right at the moment, but that doesn't mean they're not trying.

"The _point_ ," Hawke is saying, half sprawled over the bench and gesturing with wild, fluid motions, "is that I'm not so good with the _stabbity-stabbity kill_ thing. That's _your_ thing. I just make things explode."

"Mmm, and you're rather good at that." Isabela is not as tipsy as Hawke, but she is _definitely_ getting there.

Hawke giggles. "Of course! Electricity is good at making things explode, if you know how to make it do its explode-y thing!"

"Hawke, that was the most redundantly pointless thing you have said all night. Even more pointless than ' _they are trying to kill us, we should kill_ them!' "

Hawke exhales sharply, blowing strands of hair away from her eyes. "Sorry, should I have said ' _they're trying to kill us, don't stab them, they're such nice people'?_ 'cause _that_ wouldn't make sense _at all._ " She frowns. "Besides, it's not like we could have _talked_ our way out. How many times has that actually worked for us?"

"Three times," Isabela says without hesitation. "I've been keeping count. And one of those wasn't really because we _talked_ our way out, it was because Fenris stuck his hand through that man's chest and scared the _shit_ out of everyone. And then we killed them anyway."

"They were _slavers_ ," Hawke says, with far more emphasis than necessary on the last word. "I think. Was that the slaving incident? There are a lot of those. And Fenris does that – what do you call it? - magical hand thing-"

"Magical _fisting_ , sweet thing. Magical fisting."

" _Right_." Hawke picks up her drink, swallows down a mouthful, and makes a face. "Ergh. This is _terrible_. Why do I let you drag me out drinking?"

"Because it's _fun_. And you need a bit more fun in your life." Isabela snags Hawke drink from her hand and sips at it. "All right, that _is_ terrible."

"I told you." She sticks her tongue out at her in a terribly childish expression. Then, a moment later, she sees something past Isabela and the expression slips from her face, her eyes going wide. " _Oh_."

"Oh?" parrots Isabela, twisting around in her seat to see what Hawke is looking at. And then she sees _who_ it is and turns back to Hawke with a rather wicked smile on her face. " _Oh_ , indeed."

"Shut up, Isabela," Hawke says, pulling her mug back over to her and taking a determined drink. "We are _not_ talking about this."

"We are _so_ talking about this."

" _Isabela_."

" _Ismat_ ," she mocks back, and then the ever so fun teasing it cut short by the appearance of the exact person that she has been  _dying_ to pester Hawke about.

"Hawke," Anders says, looking between the two of them and the empty mugs that once held alcohol. He seems not at all surprised.

"Anders!" Isabela is _quite_ certain that Hawke is blushing and, _oh,_  that is utterly _adorable_. This is going to be _such_ fun. She _hopes_ it will be fun, at least. "I wasn't expecting to see you tonight! Hoping not to. I mean, uh, hoping that we wouldn't _need_ to. Um. We were out fighting Coterie?" The smile she gives is very sheepish indeed, and then she follows it up by hiding her face behind her drink.

 _Oh_ , but this is _precious_.

"I can see that." Anders gives them a _look_ , which was rather like the look the bartender gave the two blood splattered women when they had first entered the Hanged Man - rather disapproving and thoroughly _not_ fun. "How _did_ you manage to get covered in so much blood?"

"Hawke here is _very_ good at making things explode," Isabela says with a wicked smile on her lips. "She's as good at electricity spells as you are."

It is _so_ worth it, just to see Ander go red.

" _Right_ ," says Anders, looking none to pleased – which is unfair. It wasn't like he had nothing to do with that particular bit of information about him becoming public knowledge among Hawke's companions. " _Not_ what I came here to talk about."

"Yes, let's talk about something _else_ ," Hawke says desperately, still hiding as best she can behind her drink. "Like _cake_. Cake is delicious. I should shut up now."

Anders' eyebrows draw together in concern. "Maybe I should wait until you're a little less...drunk."

"Oh, she's not drunk _yet_. Besides," she continues, waving a hand in front of her, "can't you just magic away the alcohol?"

"No."

"That would be a useful spell, though," Hawke muses, looking thoughtfully at Anders with her head tipped to the side. "Just wiggle your fingers and _poof_ , no more wobbly alcohol feeling! And then you could drink more!"

"Sorry, as useful as it is, the answer is still no."

"Shame," Hawke says. "You were going to tell me something? What sort of something? Is it a surprise? Surprises tend to not go well with me. They generally involve knives and surprise abomination."

"It's...I wanted to talk to you about the Deep Roads."

Hawke frowns and takes another drink. "Well, _I_ don't want to talk about the Deep Roads. I don't even want to _think_ about the Deep Roads. I don't even want to _go_ on the expedition, but I have to since...money."

"Who in their right mind does?" Isabela asks as she tips back the last of her drink. She eyes the empty mug. "Right. More ale." She gets up and is just the _slightest_ bit unsteady on her feet. "I'll get you another, sweet thing."

"Thank you, Isabela. That's very charitable of you."

Isabela saunters away, keeping one eye on the two of them as she approaches the bar. Anders takes her vacated seat, and by the looks of things, he's got something  _very_ serious on his mind. 

In retrospect, she shouldn't have gone over to the bar, and she certainly shouldn't have looked away even for a moment, because when she gets back Hawke's eyes are as large as she has ever seen them and her mouth is open. Isabela knows that she has missed something _very important_.

"Oh," Hawke is saying, shock written clearly all over her face. "Yes. Of course. I'll...Varric has all the details, but I think we're leaving next week. I just...I'm sorry, I – this definitely falls into the category of surprises. But it's a good surprise."

"I'm...glad," says Anders and he gives Hawke this soft, sweet smile, and _dammit_ , Isabela missed _something_. "I should go and leave you two to your drinking."

"Or you could _stay_ and drink _with_ us," Isabela tries, because she likes to think she can be a _somewhat decent_ friend at times, and _somewhat decent_ friends try to create opportunities for a friend and the object of that friend's affections when they can. It's all useless, of course. Anders doesn't drink, not often and not to excess, and she finds that very  _dull_. And also predictable.

"Another time, Isabela," he says, and then he's gone. Hawke's eyes follow him as he heads out the door.

"He said he's coming with us," Hawke says somewhat distantly, before Isabela can even ask what had just happened. "He's going to come with me to the Deep Roads."

Oh, so _that's_ what's got them both all smiling. She'll never understand them. "Several weeks underground with our resident healer?" Isabela makes a little sound of amusement as she looks at Hawke's still shocked face. "You know that you'll have to tell me absolutely  _everything_ when you get back."

"You'll be the first to know," Hawke says, and Isabela passes her a full mug of ale.

"Well? Let's continue celebrating. To Deep Roads and darkspawn and men with silly feathered pauldrons."

Hawke laughs. " _Cute_ men with silly feathered pauldrons," she says, and they both drink.

 

 

*

 

It becomes immediately apparent that their path into the Deep Roads has not been used in centuries. It is hard enough to get into and requires more time clearing rubble than they would have like. Still, an untouched entrance means untouched treasure, or so Bartrand keeps saying.

Their path is dark, any dwarven ingenuity that might have lit it having long since broken down, and so they are wreathed in an oppressive darkness that threatens to suffocate. The air is stale and old, smelling of decay and mold, and water drops from the ceiling to splatter at their feet.

They carry torches, some lit, others bound tightly to the packs they carry, none certain when there will be light in the depths. Hawke walks before him, beside her brother, little fairy lights of electricity dancing in the air around her as she walks. The blue glow casts odd shadows around them, stretching out their forms until they disappear into the blackness around them.

It is a dull sensation now, but he can already feel the pull of the darkspawn taint within his blood. It is a quiet thing, barely there, but it is enough to make his skin itch and to set his nerves on edge.

He is already regretting this.

But there is a curiosity that stirs within his mind, and he knows that it is Justice – Justice, who he had not even met when Anders had followed the Warden-Commander into Kal'Hirol and who has never been in the Deep Roads before.

They might share a body, but there is still enough difference between their minds. This curiosity is so like his old friend that Anders feels something like hope for the first time in awhile, and even the pull of the darkspawn is not so bad.

Of course, these are the Deep Roads, and that means _something_ will go wrong. He just hopes there aren't any giant insect-like things this time around. Well, giant insect darkspawn. He can deal with giant spiders. Mostly.

Kal'Hirol had not been fun, this he remembers clearly. It had been lighter than this, though, and the descent into the deep had not been so steep or treacherous. And Nathaniel had been there, with his perpetual scowl, and Oghren with his stench of alcohol and lewd comments, and they had met Sigrun who had asked him to demonstrate his magic over and over and _over_ , and the Warden-Commander had actually _smiled_ , a rarity that he hadn't understood at the time-

There is a swell of regret and longing within him, and the emotion is not just his own. Justice misses them as well.

 _We will never see them again_ , he thinks, and there is bitterness in that thought.

"You're awfully quiet there, blondie," Varric says from his side, and Anders tears his eyes away from the lights that bounce around Hawke's head. "Got something on your mind?"

"Yes. I'm just wondering how long before the darkspawn jump out of the shadows and decide to eat us for dinner." But he says it lightly; there are no darkspawn near, none close enough to be a threat. Hopefully, they will have days without running into them.

Varric laughs. "Well, I don't know about you, but I would make a _terrible_ meal."

"I've been told dwarves make for bad cooking," Anders muses. "Must be all that ale. Makes them highly flammable. If we ever end up in a life or death situation and end up needing to eat each other to survive, you'll be the last to go."

Justice grumbles in his head, not finding this funny. Anders tries to ignore him.

"Are you two discussing eating dwarves?" Hawke asks, turning her head to look back at them. The magic lights sputter and cast odd shadows across her face. She's practically swathed in darkness.

"What else is there to discuss during an expedition into darkspawn infested depths?" Varric asks. Anders cannot see his face clearly, but he knows the exact expression that would be there. "Besides, we're not just discussing the finer points of eating dwarves, but the exact eating order in case we're forced into cannibalism."

Hawke laughs. "Oh, Varric. What would I ever do without you? Also, I'm thinking Carver would be first on that list."

"Leave me out of this," her brother says and Hawke laughs again.

The pathway takes a steep turn downward before long, ruined steps becoming more of a hazard than a help. They go in turns, long lines of lights before them as the torches are carefully carried downward.

He follows Hawke down the broken stairs, hearing her quiet curses as she tries to find decent footing. Carver calls warnings to her as he tries to pick the safest path and Anders listens to their seemingly lighthearted banter. There is an undercurrent of tension between the two, a harshness that has grown over the months that he has known both of them, and it is even more apparent now.

There is a patch where the stairs have completely crumbled away and only rubble remains. It is here that Hawke missteps, the magical lights she has conjured blinking out as she falls, the sound of tumbling stones and a startled shriek cutting through the sudden darkness.

He's the closest to her, not ten feet behind, and he reaches her first. He casts magelights up into the air, bright enough illuminate the area.

Thankfully, she doesn't _look_ to be hurt – he breathes a sigh of relief to find her still conscious, muttering to herself as she tries to free herself from the twisted straps of her pack which had trapped her when she fell.

"Are you all right?" he asks, crouching on the stablest bit of ground that he can and helping her to unthread her arms from where the straps have bound them tight against her torso. The lights that he has conjured goes out and they are wreathed in darkness again.

She's muttering curses under her breath – he's amused to hear one or two of Varric's more inventive ones. "I'm _fine_ ," she says harshly, and light sparks around her, just enough that they can see each other. "Bloody Deep Roads. Why did I want to come down here again?"

"Gold, riches, and death? Oh, and darkspawn." Together, they get her free of the pack and Anders stands, offering a hand to help her up. She grasps it tightly and he pulls her up.

"Oh, joy, _darkspawn_." Her hand is warm in his and the perpetual scent of lightening that follows her around is so much stronger this close to her. He swallows, mouth dry, and drops her hand – perhaps a little too quickly, and in the dim light he thinks that she is frowning at him.

"You know, your little light show down here is making it really hard to follow you, Hawke," Varric says, coming up behind them, the light from his torch illuminating both of them. "What happen, the stairs try to kill you?"

"Something like that," she says, swinging her pack back over her shoulders. "You'd be surprised how bloodthirsty that can be."

"Vicious stairs," Varric muses as they begin to move again, Hawke being particularly careful about where she steps now. "I'll have to work that into one of my stories about you. Think of it: _Hawke defeats the demon stairs of the Deep Roads_."

"Aided by her dashing apostate sidekick, of course," Hawke says playfully. Anders swears that she winks at him.

He puts a hand to his heart in mock pain. " _Sidekick_? My dear, I am _wounded_. Surely I deserve a better title than that."

She shrugs. "Companion, then? Varric, you think of something. I'm no good at coming up with stuff like this."

The dwarf laughs. "Hawke, you just stick to electrifying things. You're much better at it."

 

 

*

 

They make camp later, when they have reached a long stretch of level ground. They have reached a more intact portion of the Deep Roads, the architecture worn but distinct, and the darkness is broken by the blue glow of lyrium veins that shows through cracks in the stone.

It is not much, not yet, but Justice begins to hum within him at the proximity to it. The spirit's fascination with the substance bleeds into Anders' own mind and he finds himself distracted throughout what serves as night for them, lying on his bedroll unable to sleep. It is not a new occurrence – since merging with Justice he has begun to sleep less and less, his thoughts restless and always racing with those of Justice refusing to quiet.

"Shut up, Justice," he tells himself ineffectually, and wishes that he had been able to keep that damned ring of lyrium the Warden-Commander had give Justice. Maybe it would have helped to dampen the spirit's curiosity.

"Talking with the demon in your head again?"

Anders stifles a groan of annoyance. _This_ is exactly why he doesn't carry on conversations with the spirit – well, doesn't carry on what could possibly be termed a conversation, since the thoughts in his head don't coalesce into neatly organized dialogues between the two different individuals.

"I didn't realize it was bothering you, Carver," he says. "If you'd like, I can relay all of the bits you _aren't_ hearing. It's really quite fascinating."

"Right, because hearing what your demon has to say is right up on the list of things I'm dying to know," the boy – and he really is a boy, only newly into his twenties, and Anders can remember being that age – says acidically.

"You know, Justice doesn't appreciate being called a demon," says Anders as lightly as he can, given the swell of annoyance within his chest that really isn't his at all. "You could try ' _personification of a virtue_ '. He likes fancy descriptions."

No, he doesn't, not at all, and the annoyance only grows.

"And I don't appreciate hearing about mage issues all the time, so I guess we're both bloody out of luck."

There is a long bout of silence, broken only by the sound of breathing and Bartrand's snores from across the camp.

"Carver," Anders says after a time, and the boy is supposed to be on watch so even though he is met with silence he continues to speak. "Why _did_ you choose to come on this expedition?"

"What's that supposed to mean? And, anyway, I could ask _you_ the same question."

"Hawke asked me to come," he says, turning his head and glancing briefly over to where the woman is sleeping, tightly curled in on herself with her head mostly hidden by her bedroll. "And I'm a warden. The wardens and the Deep Roads sort of go together."

"But you're not a warden anymore."

Anders gives a bitter laugh. "Oh, they'll drag me back one day. One way or another. You never really leave the wardens. But you, _you_ didn't have to come here. You keep complaining about being in your sister's shadow, and yet you insisted on joining her in this."

There is a long silence. Carver shifts where he is sitting and Anders turns his head to see the boy hunched over toward the fire.

"I..." he starts, prodding slowly at the fire with a stick, the movement sending little sparks flying up into the air. "Do you have a family?"

It's an unexpected question, one that Anders isn't certain how to answer. It is such a strange thing to him, this idea of family.

"Not like you, no," he finally says. "Once, a long time ago...I did."

Carver lets out a long breath. "Look, I...I don't know if you can understand, but it's not as simple as just running away from everyone to find a life of my own. Right now, no matter what else, my family is important. And after Bethany...mother blames Ismat for that. But it wasn't just her fault. I could have done _something_. I didn't, and my sister died. And I'm not going to lose another one."

"You're trying to protect her."

"Like she _needs_ my protection," the boy mutters, shoving at the fire viciously. "Look, forget I said anything. I don't even know why I'm talking to you."

"There was a girl at the Circle Tower in Fereldan," Anders finds himself saying, not certain why he's telling him this, only knowing that Carver has just told him something that he probably hasn't told anyone else and feeling the need to reciprocate in kind. "Ren Surana. She was younger than me, and more than a little...oblivious to things. Constantly setting herself on fire. She didn't...did notice a lot of the things that happened in the tower. We...a few of us used to watch out for her. Made certain that nothing happened to her." There are bitter memories in the back of his mind and he feels anger that is both his and Justice's. "Sometimes, I guess you have to sacrifice part of yourself for the people you care about."

"That's some healthy wisdom you have there," says Carver, and then he is silent again.

Anders wonders if this will form some sort of truce between the two of them. However unlikely, he finds that he hopes for it.

Eventually, Justice quiets enough that he is able to sleep, and when he does he dreams of darkspawn.


	2. Chapter 2

There is something  _wrong_ , something pulling in his blood and making him feel like the world is shifting beneath him.

Anders wakes, immediately grasping for his staff, rolling to his feet unsteadily.

“ _Darkspawn_ ,” he rasps out, voice harsh from sleep. “ _Get up_.”

There is little enough time for anyone to react. He nearly trips over Varric as he moves towards where he can feel the strongest pull from the taint. He can barely make out the forms of the darkspawn in the dim glow of the lyrium but he can  _feel_  them, and that is enough for him to slam his staff into the ground, ice splintering up from the ground to catch the first wave of the creatures.

There are five of them, three of them caught in the ice.  _Hurlocks_ , he thinks,  _no ogres yet. Oh, and an emissary._

 _Shit_.

A crossbow bolt slices through the air beside him, far too close to his face for comfort, but it strikes one of the hurlocks. The creature doesn't fall, only jerks as the bolt buries itself in its shoulder.

“Maker's breath,” Varric growls from behind Anders. “Hawke! I need light to aim!”

The air around the darkspawn begins to spark and crack, ropes of energy casting blue and white light everywhere. One of the hurlock's falls, a bolt through its skull.

The emissary is at the back, smart enough to keep its distance. Anders can feel the energy that it draws upon, even mixed in with all of the other magic lacing the air. There has always been something  _wrong_  about the magic emissaries cast – though, he supposes, it might just have something to do with the taint.

It is a stray thought that crosses his mind as one of the darkspawn draws too near to him – he spins to the side, lashing out with the bladed end of his staff, blood and ice spraying around him as he connects with flesh – that he could always ask Hawke if she notices a difference in the emissary's magic.

There is a  _very_  strong sense of  _this is not something to be thinking about now_ , and Anders draws his focus back to the darkspawn. The emissary needs to be taken down –  _that_ is the first priority.

There is movement to his left, Carver moving forward swiftly. There is a hurlock there – the boy swings at it, hard, and his sword bites into metal armor.

 _Emissary. Now_.

Hawke moves past him as well, into the fray, and it seems like she is targeting the emissary as well. Magic runs thick in the air as she begins to cast, lightning dancing along her fingertips, down the length of her staff, and she swings her body, ready to throw the light from her.

The emissary casts faster.

There is light – there is  _so often_  light, the buildup of magic as it is released in whichever form – and Hawke falters as it hits her, staggers, her staff stabbed quickly into the ground to keep her from falling. The lightning at her fingers fades.

“The tall one at the back, Carver!” she yells. “ _Kill it!_ ”

The boy moves and Hawke casts, stone rising from the ground to encase the emissary, holding it in place. Another hurlock – Anders freezes it solid before it can reach Carver – and then past that, and the boy cleaves upward with his sword. Once, twice, again, and the emissary falls.

When it is all over, every darkspawn dead upon the ground, Anders takes a moment and breathes. He can still feel darkspawn, though there are none close by. His head pounds, though he is not certain what from – use of magic, lack of sleep, the ebb of the taint within him body. Or it could be lack of food – that was always a good bet in cases like that.

“Is everyone all right?” he hears Hawke call out, and she coughs as though she is having trouble breathing. His eyes snap open and he looks to her; she is leaning on her staff, one hand pressed to her chest.

“I'm fine,” Varric says, picking his way over bodies of darkspawn. “Can't say the same for the darkspawn here.” The rest of the expedition is awake now, moving around, an edge of panic in everyone.

“That's kind of the point of killing them, Varric. They're not supposed to be fine after they're dead.” Hawke straightens and looks toward Anders. “Are there anymore darkspawn near?”

“No. There are more, just not...here.”

She nods, strapping her staff onto her back and then turns back to the remains of the camp, wrinkling her nose as she kicks a darkspawn corpse off of her bedroll. “Urgh. And now this is going to smell for the rest of the trip.”

“It's going to smell by the end of this trip, regardless,” says Varric, whose own bedroll is darkspawn-free. Hawke sticks her tongue out at the dwarf.

“Look, can we just pick up camp without all this added banter?” Carver asks. He's completely splattered in darkspawn blood, which is  _not_  a good thing. “Bartrand looks ready to kill someone.”

“My brother always looks like that. Give him time. Once he punches someone, he'll be good as new soon enough.”

Anders just shakes his head at this. “You have a very strange family.” He turns to Carver. “You're going to need to get that blood off of you,” he says. He pitches his next words loud enough that everyone can hear them. “Anyone who's come into contact with darkspawn blood needs to wash it off as soon as possible.”

“And just  _how_  am I supposed to do that?”Carver demands, wiping at the blackening blood staining his cheek. “It's not like we've got some endless supply of water with us.”

“I wouldn't be so certain about that,” Anders says with maybe just a  _hint_  of a smirk, and draws on just the slightest thread of magic, ice crystals blooming in his raised hand.

“Show off,” Carver says, but anything more that he might have said is drowned out by Hawke, who is giving him the same look that she gave him weeks ago when he had used his own fire to purify a basin of water.

“It  _is_  real ice, too,” he says, used by her wide eyed expression. “And if I melt it, it will be real water. Just...magically  _created_  real ice.”

“That is incredibly useful,” she says, and there's an odd longing note to her voice.

“It's not that hard to do,” Anders says. “It's just ice magic, after all. It's really easy.”

 _Something_  in her face changes, excitement fading away to be replaced by something  _hurt_ , and his heart drops because, somehow, he's just said something  _wrong_.

“Sister dearest here can't do ice magic,” Carver says with a hint of malice in his voice. Hawke reaches out to try to whack the back of his head.

“Shut up, Carver!”

“Hey, it's the truth!” He dodges out of the way of her hand. Hawke just glares at him.

“You can't do ice magic?” Anders asks her, and he probably sounds more shocked than he shoulder. It wasn't as though he didn't know mages who couldn't use particular schools of magic – Surana, he remembers, couldn't heal worth  _anything_ , and it wasn't like Anders had ever bothered to learn entropy spells no matter how much Amell had pestered him about it – but normally they  _could_  perform a spell if they  _tried_. Surana certainly  _rarely_  tried, though she _mostly_ excelled at setting herself on fire. The way the two siblings were talking, though, it sounded like-

“I am physically incapable of conjuring ice,” Hawke says. “Can we stop talking about this?  _Please?_ ”

It doesn't explain  _anything_ , but she's glaring at  _him_  now, and he'd rather not be on the receiving end of that look.

“Well-”

“I will  _hurt_  you, Carver,” she says. “Now, let's get this blood off you before you turn into a ghoul or something.”

"I can do it myself."

"Then get to it!" Hawke draws in a breath again, still shallow. Anders moves to her side.

"Here, let me see what's wrong." She stills as he sets his fingers to her breastbone. His magic coils through her, works its way through her chest. There's something there, a little  _catch_ from the emissary's magic. He tugs at it, soothes it, and when he releases the healing spell it is gone. "Better?"

"Much," she says, and presses her hand against her chest as though assuring herself that it truly is. 

 

*

 

Varric has decided that he hates the Deep Roads.

That probably makes him a piss poor dwarf, but it's not like he isn't already a topsider and therefore about as un-dwarfish as a dwarf could possibly be without turning into an elf.

At least they've finally gotten past the  _really_  dark part of this journey – now that they've reached the beginnings of the old and forgotten thaigs they are deep enough within the earth that lyrium and lava can be found. There's light everywhere, enough to brighten the caverns and halls.

The mages have been acting oddly since the first sightings of lyrium. Not  _drastically_ different, but he's the sort of person to pick up on these sort of things.

Hawke is on edge. Jumpy. More talkative than normal, like she's got excess energy that she's got to get rid of one way or another. The first time that they find a vein of lyrium that isn't completely blocked to them, she darts up to it, far too close to be healthy, looking completely starstruck, and would probably have tried touching the damned stuff if Carver hadn't bodily dragged her away. Varric doesn't know exactly what lyrium does to mages, but he knows full well that it's  _not_ the sort of thing that someone should be sticking their hands on.

Then again, the first time they came across a river of lava flowing beside the path, she runs to the edge and sticks her head over to get a better look at it. Blondie is the one to pull her back that time and then proceeded to explain exactly what it was to the woman who only had the barest ideas of what sort of things were buried under the earth.

Anders, on the other hand, wavers between a state of high strung anxiety and a strangely calm state. Calm, but incredibly distant. Being distant isn't exactly a new thing for him – Varric  _notices_  things, and he  _knows_  that Blondie's not always all there. He's not exactly sure which of the not-normal ways of acting he dislikes more, the distant, blank looks that he gets sometimes or the full on blue-glowing mode of his. Varric's been lucky in regards to the latter of the two; he's only seen Blondie's vengeful passenger show up twice. Hawke, he knows, has seen the spirit come out to play a couple times more than that.

He just hopes that calm and distant is a  _good_  thing.

They run into darkspawn more and more often, fighting and killing and stopping to wash away as much of the tainted blood as possible. It becomes impossible to remove it completely from their clothes and armor, though that doesn't stop Hawke from stripping down to a thin shift and pants and trying to dig dried blood out of the grooves of her leathers whenever they stop to make camp.

By the time they are about a week into the expedition, everyone is tired and growing sick of the entire thing, and that, of course, is when they actually begin to find things. They are deep underground now, and Varric thinks that he should probably be feeling some sort of ingrained dwarven pride. He's not. The whole place smells strongly of nug shit and darkspawn and rot and is dreadfully unpleasant.

Preferring to be in the sun to the Deep Roads probably breaks some dwarven law or something. At this point, though, Varric can care less.

At least they are nearing their destination, lyrium running thick around them, more and more doorways leading to areas that had likely once been inhabited. And they are starting to find  _things_ , old relics, bits of an ancient dwarven past, gold and jewels and precious metals that will fetch a fantastic price back on the surface.

The four of them end up playing scouts more often than not, being the most heavily armed and – dare he say it –  _dangerous_  members of the expedition.

So, when the path forward is blocked by rubble and and doors that would no longer open after years of being sealed, they were the ones sent on ahead to chart a new route.

Truth be told, though, he thinks that Hawke's insistence they go is spurred by her trying very hard  _not_  to punch Bartrand in the face every time the dwarf opens his mouth. She's not a fan of his brother, that much is for certain. And it's understandable – after all, Varric himself isn't particularly enjoying spending several all this time underground with Bartrand.

“Did your brother  _have_  to actually be on this expedition?” Hawke asks him once they're out of sight of camp, picking their way carefully down the rubble-strewn side passageway.

Varric gives a sharp bark of laughter. “He's got to 'protect his investment'.”

“Well, given that I'm here because fifty sovereigns is a damn lot of coin and I'm sure this is all costing a  _lot_  more than that, I guess I'm not surprised.”

Anders, who is walking in front of them, pulls up short and glances back at them. “We've got darkspawn ahead,” he says with a grim smile.

“Wonderful.” Carver raises a hand to the hilt of his sword, looking briefly towards Anders. “Do you warden senses tell you anything  _useful?_ ”

“I would think that being able to detect that there  _are_  darkspawn around is pretty useful. Why, what's  _your_  definition of useful?”

“Oh, maybe telling us how many darkspawn there are and if there are any ogres,” Carver says.

“Maker, please don't let there be ogres,” Hawke says quietly, the words almost a whisper, but they all hear her. There's a moment of almost awkward silence – both he and Anders have heard about how the third Hawke sibling had died, even if Varric hasn't pressed for specifics – and then Hawke pulls her long bladed staff from its resting place on her back and stalks forward. “Right. Darkspawn. Let's move. The faster we get this done, the sooner we can get to wherever it is we're trying to go.”

In the end, though, it's not ogres that they have to worry about, it's spiders. Giant,  _monstrous_  spiders that drop down from the ceiling and crawl out of crevices that seem far too small to have harbored such huge creatures. The path they had been following had led only to a locked door that they couldn't open and the corridor behind them filled up with the spiders, trapping them quite effectively and giving them little room to actually move.

The good thing about being a ranged combat fighter is that you don't have to move around a lot. The bad thing is that a crossbow isn't the most effective weapon when a spider crawls right up to you and tries to eat you. At least, Varric assumes it's trying to eat him. He really shouldn't try to reason out the motives behind a giant spider.

Still, he's found that a crossbow bolt, when applied to one of the multitudinous eyes of a spider, makes a damn good weapon.

Well, several bolts applied to several eyes.

Hawke is mashed up against the wall, as far away from the spiders as she can get, casting spells from a small outcropping of rock that she's managed to scramble up. It's not really any safer than anywhere else, but he would guess that it gives her a better view of the hall.

Carver and Anders get stuck in the open, surrounded by the creatures. It's probably not  _too_  terrible for Carver. The boy is used to close combat. But Blondie's not all that good at it, and that stupid fluffy coat of his isn't all that protective – not that Varric, clad in his not-armored leather coat has much room to talk. Still, the two do decently, Anders freezing them and dropping those paralysis glyphs of his here and there to slow the spiders down while Carver hacks at them with that absurdly large sword of his.

Well. They do decently until the largest spider that Varric has  _ever_  seen drops down from a wide crack in the ceiling, bowling Carver over with one of its legs and turning its attention straight to the healer.

The spider catches him with his back turned – he's finishing another spider off, what they had all thought to be the last – and he's barely got time to turn and face it before its on him, its grotesque head descending. Varric can see its fangs.

There's a shout from Anders as he manages to bring his staff up, keeping it between himself and the spider, but the spider is intent on him and there is a terrible cracking sound as it hits the staff instead of him. The force of the blow shatters the staff and throws him to the ground. And then the spider is on top of him.

“ _Anders!_ ”

It's Hawke's panicked shout and she lunges forward, off the rocks that she's spent most of the battle on, casting even as she moves, spell after spell, all of which seem to do little to harm the spider. He can hear Anders yelling and Hawke casts  _something,_ a spell that Varric can feel even from behind her. Something thrums through the air, tugging on all his limbs so much that he almost feels himself being pulled forward. Varric doesn't know magic well, but whatever this is, it's heavy and strong, running thick in the air. The spider rears back and Varric takes aim at its head, loosing a bolt straight into one of its eyes.

It's enough for Anders to scramble forward, pulling himself out from under the spider. There's a long tear down the side of his coat and Varric can see blood. He tries to rise to his feet but falters.

“Get  _away_  from him!” It's pointless to yell at at a giant spider, but Hawke does so anyway, placing herself between it and Anders. The air hums around her as lightning gathers around her staff, streaking out to scorch along the spider's side. Which does little more than turn its attention to  _her_. But she's not caught as unaware as Anders was and manages to avoid the first swipe of the spider's head. “Carver!” she yells as she plasters herself to the wall, then twists to the side, striking out with the bladed end of her staff and finally –  _finally_  – tearing a long gash into the spider's abdomen. “Get its leg! Any of them!”

And Carver hits the spider with as much force as he can, right as the air grows heavy again and Hawke casts again, the heavy spell from before, and it pulls the spider down, slamming it into the ground. It stays there for only a moment before it's up again, legs scrabbling about, clicking and hissing aggressively.

The spider seems to be immune to most everything she can throw at it, and that strange new thing stops working quickly. But combined with what Carver has done, the spider falls – not dead, not even  _close_  – but temporarily off-kilter, and even as Carver and Hawke both stab at its underbelly, Anders gathers up enough magic to send a sheet of ice across the ground. It catches several more of the legs, freezing them in place. It's enough to still it, stop it, and it's a combination of Carver's heavy strikes, Varric's crossbow bolts to its eyes, and Hawke tearing at its underside with a lightning-laced blade that finally take it down.

When it's all over, both Hawke and Carver are covered in the spider's gore – Varric is quickly reminded of just how  _awful_  the insides of a spider smell – and Anders is propped against the rock wall, cocooning himself in healing magic.

When he tells Isabela about this when they get back, he'll add all sorts of embellishments.  _Hawke raced over to the fallen healer, falling to her knees beside him. He was hurt, pale and bleeding, but Hawke wasn't about to let him die and called upon healing magic that she hadn't known she'd possessed -_

No, that was no good. Too cliched, though Isabela  _did_  love a good cliché.

Maybe he'd just tell her what actually happened and the two of them could work on making it more and more unbelievable over a round or two at the Hanged Man.

What actually happens is a bit less dramatic – Hawke  _does_  run over to Anders, who is very much conscious and, while he looks pretty pale, he's not bleeding all  _that_  much.

“Did you know that most spiders are poisonous?” Anders says from where he lies on the ground, and he has a sort of pained grin on his face. “Do you happen to have an extra antidote kit? It would help fantastically in me  _not_  dying.”

Okay, so Hawke  _does_  drop to her knees beside him, rummaging through the pouches attached to her belt, spilling little vials of all the various potions and poisons she carried all around her feet, finally finding the one she wants and passing it to him as quickly as she can.

“Come on, Blondie, dying at this point would just be sad,” Varric says, the lightness in his voice betraying the fact that he's more than a little concerned with just how pale Anders looks. Granted, they've been away from the sun for quite awhile now, but this is definitely the “I've been poisoned, help” sort of pale and not the sun-deprived sort.

Anders laughs, uncapping the vial with an unsteady hand and swallowing down the antidote as quickly as he can. “Death by spiders is a bit underwhelming,” he says, wiping a hand over his mouth.

“Anything I can do?” Hawke asks, looking to the healer even while her hands gather up the scattered vials.

Anders shakes his head. “Antidote should kick in shortly. If not, I'll just fall over in a little bit.”

Hawke's eyebrows draw together and she gives him a  _look_ , which he patently ignores. “That is  _not_  funny.”

“Is our delicate little mage-flower not doing so well?” asks Carver, who has taken this time to make sure there are no other creatures around. Hawke turns her glare on him.

“Shut up, Carver,” she says. “See if  _you_  like getting poisoned by Deep Road creatures. I'm sure you'll just  _love_  it.”

“Right. And I'll just be  _waiting_  for you to swoop in and save me when  _that_  happens.”

“Well, I don't  _appear_  to be falling over dead,” Anders says to Varric, as the two siblings are glaring quite pointedly at one another. “I'd say the combination of healing magic and potions wins again.”

“You've got too much luck to be good for you, Blondie.”

“Eh.” Anders has that odd, distant smile on his lips as he allows the healing magic to fade. “I'm just lucky enough to get out of bad situations for awhile, but not lucky enough to escape them altogether.”

“Better than having no luck at all.”

Anders shrugs, but doesn't respond to that. “I'm going to need to find a new staff,” he says, almost amused. “Fantastic.”

No one mentions the magic Hawke had used. Varric wonders if anyone else noticed. But what does he know about magic - maybe it wasn't anything new at all.

 

*

 

“Well, I don't have any idea how he did it, but Sandal took down a  _lot_  of darkspawn.” Hawke picks her way through to corpses, turning one over with her booted foot. “I guess Bodhan didn't need to worry all that much about him.”

“You know, I think the Warden-Commander had a story or two about him.” The mention of the Warden-Commander is enough to draw Hawke's attention; Anders doesn't talk about her much, or about his time with the Wardens, and that mystery is one of the thing that fascinates her about him.

“Yeah? Bodhan  _did_  mention that they traveled with the Hero of Ferelden during the Blight. What sort of stories were they?” she asks, curious, but not wanting to pry too much.

“I said I  _think_  she had stories,” Anders says, an infuriating little smirk of his tugging at his lips. “We were normally all drunk by the time she started talking about the Blight.”

“You? Drunk? I'll believe it when I see it.” She surveys the rest of the corpses, finally spying what she has been looking for. “Aha! Found it!”

Anders give her an odd look as she darts forward, pushing over yet another darkspawn's body. “You found  _what?_  Do I even want to know?”

Hawke drops into a crouch, bouncing on the balls of her feet as she tugs at the staff half covered by on of the corpses. “Well,  _you_  happen to need a new staff, and emissaries just  _happen_  to carry staffs. And seeing as all these are quite  _dead_ , I figure,” she yanks on the staff, managing to pull it out, and holds it up triumphantly, “that you could find a better use for one. Like this one!”

He's looking at her  _really_  oddly, but she's really not sure what his expression is supposed to convey. Then again, she's not always the best at reading people. She glances from him to the staff and grimaces.

“Okay,” she concedes, “so it's sort of covered in darkspawn guts and is probably tainted and sort of smells, but it's a  _staff!_  It's better than  _no_  staff, at least. It will help make your fireballs larger!”

“Is that some sort of euphemism, Hawke?” Varric asks. “If it is, it's not really the best.”

Hawke's cheeks heat somewhat, but she laughs. “Varric, if it was meant to be a euphemism, you'd  _know_.” She looks back to Anders. “Oh, for the Maker's sake, just take the bloody staff, Anders. Think of it as a gift.”

“A bloody staff indeed,” he says, but he reaches out and gingerly takes the staff. “I can cast perfectly well without a staff, you know.”

“I'm  _sure_  you can.” There's only the  _tiniest_  bit of sarcasm in her voice. Only the smallest bit. She's pretty sure he's lying. “But this has pointy, sharp...crescent-y shaped blade things. Better for stabbing. You know, useful for  _not_  getting chewed on by giant spiders.” And, luckily, he seems to be more or less okay after that, if still a bit paler than normal. But he hasn't fallen over dead from poisoning yet, and it's been a bit of time. She's going to _assume_ he's all right. It's not like she can really do anything if he isn't; it's not like she's a healer.

“Sweetheart, I've been stabbing things since before you were born,” he says, grinning. “I know a thing or two about stabbing.”

“Oh, my, you must be  _much_  older than I thought, if you've been stabbing things that long.” She gives him a rather cheeky smile.

“Oh, will you two just  _stop talking_  already?”

“Aw, impatient to go kill more darkspawn?” Hawke asks, rising to her feet and wiping her hands over her pants to get rid of the traces of blood that have stuck to them.

“Impatient to find a way past all of this rubble,” he says. “Come on. The sooner we do this, the sooner we can get back to Varric's brother.”

“Joy of joys,” Varric says, and they begin to walk again.


	3. Chapter 3

 There is an ogre. And then a dragon. And there is a lot of blood and yelling, along with Hawke repeatedly kicking in the dead ogre's head as though it had done her some terrible wrong – and, in a way, it sort of has, by virtue of simply being an ogre.

That, and it had bashed Carver into a wall before Anders had managed to immobilize it, and that was _not_ something the eldest Hawke sibling was okay with. The bashing, that is. Not the immobilizing. Anders rather thought that Hawke enjoyed seeing an ogre knocked down midstep by a well placed sheet of ice followed by a crushing prison or two.

They take a few minutes to wash the darkspawn blood from their skin – Hawke fusses over Carver, wiping at his face with a damp scrap of cloth until he snaps at her and tells her to stop coddling him. And she snaps right back, the two of them throwing words back and forth between them until the name Bethany is mentioned. After that, they are both quiet, and Carver allows Hawke to wipe away the last traces of the tainted blood.

Anders doesn't understand the two of them, does not understand these siblings and their squabbling. Justice understands even less, not understanding the concept of _family_ , does not have anything more than the echoes of Kristoff and Aura and Anders' own memories of his mother and father to draw from.

But Justice does not much care for the youngest Hawke, disliking someone who should know so much of what mages must endure and yet does _nothing_. But Justice sees the world in black and white, and now that they have merged, Anders can see that as well. But he can still see things in shades of grey. He can understand a young man who has not yet found his place in the world – it had taken Anders _years_ , after all, running away from everything that might have meant anything to him until he met Justice – and so while he can dislike Carver for many reasons, he can still understand at least a little bit of why the boy thinks as he does.

He worries about what it will mean when he stops being able to see that there are shades of grey in any situation. When he looks at anyone who does not stand with the mages against their oppressors and sees only enemies.

But Hawke and Carver are confusing, in many ways, with all the anger that fills the air between them. And yet there is some undercurrent of affection – and both of them are incredibly protective of the other, in ways that they both chafe under. Not that they both don't do some _very_ stupid things, and Anders is honestly shocked that they have all made it out of certain situations with Hawke's magic still a secret. He hadn't been there when Hawke had confronted the Knight-Captain on the Wounded Coast, but to hear Carver tell it she had all but openly declared that she was a mage.

He remembers Cullen from the Circle in Ferelden, remembers him when he was an awkward, newly appointed Templar who turned bright red whenever _certain girls_ would so much as glance his way, and he also remembers him in the aftermath of Uldred and how he had become increasingly volatile after what had happened to him.

 _That_ Cullen is not the sort of Templar that Anders would have wanted to see anywhere near a mage, much less near Hawke. She might know when not to cast, but she's not the sort to curb her tongue. She speaks her mind, and when it is to defend mages – he has seen it firsthand, and while there is such...such _approval_ , from Justice, from himself, at how she doesn't back down when she sees a mage wronged, there is also worry and even _fear_ , because Anders, at least, understands how fine a line she walks.

In some ways, he has _no_ idea how she has been able to evade the Templars for so long. Barring anything else, he thinks that she must be _incredibly_ lucky.

The dragon, when it swoops down upon them as they enter a large chamber, turns out to be a bit more than they can handle, even collectively. Ogres they can take, even giant spiders – though Anders is _very_ happy that they still had a vial of antidote left, because that could have ended very badly for him – but _dragons_ are a bit much. It's the sort of fight that they all end up limping away from, and Anders is glad for all the lyrium around them, because without it he would probably be feeling completely drained.

They take refuge in a small alcove for a time, to exhausted to keep moving forward. Carver and Hawke slump against one another, both equally protective of the other in the moments after the dragon had caught Carver's leg in its mouth, after Hawke had been flung against a wall hard enough to knock her out. Anders has fixed them both – Carver's leg will be scarred, but he'll walk again. Hawke – well, Hawke's got a hard head, and while colliding with a wall wasn't _good_ for her, Anders had got to her quick enough to prevent anything from taking a bad turn. He's good at healing head injuries; spending a few months battling beside Oghren had given him ample opportunity for practice.

They're both going to be fine.

Anders, on the other hand, is exhausted. Too much lyrium and too much healing makes for a tired body and a restless mind. He's curled up by the door to the ruined room they have made camp in, pressed back against the wall, trying to will himself to sleep. But it eludes him and all he accomplishes is determining the number of stones used to make the back wall.

“Blondie, you should take your own advice and get some sleep.”

Anders glances over to where Varric sits. The dwarf had come out of the battle most intact, with only a singed coat and a few scratches that hadn't taken much effort to patch up.

“Can't sleep,” he says, his words more fragmented by his fatigue than he would like. “The lyrium won't stop singing.”

Varric's eyebrows draw together, his expression one of concern. “I've heard you say some pretty creepy things, Blondie. Justice isn't coming out to play, I hope.”

“What? No.” Anders shakes his head a bit, debating whether or not he should just use a rejuvenation spell on himself. He's done it before, gone days with minimal sleep and enough spells to keep his body from failing on him. It was something he had learned after his second escape from the Circle, when he had realized that any stops during the first few days would mean his capture. “I'm just...tired. The whole actually falling asleep thing seems to be a bit beyond my reach, though.”

“Huh. Might want to try fixing that. You look like something a giant spider chewed on.”

“Hah, hah. Witty, Varric. Real witty.”

“I try.”

There's a beat, a pause where Varric is silent and Anders watches the flicker of the little fire they have going.

“You really do look like shit, you know,” Varric finally says. Anders give a small laugh.

“Good to know you're keeping tabs on my appearance.”

“I'm serious. Am I going to have to knock you out for you to get some sleep?”

“Please, don't.”

There is silence again, save for the crackle of the fire and the constant murmur of Justice in the back of Anders' mind.

“So, Blondie,” Varric begins, and Anders allows his gaze to slide over to the dwarf. He knows that tone – it's Varric's ' _I'm going to ask you a question about something you probably don't want to talk about but you're going to answer_ ' voice. “Just why _did_ you decide to join us on this expedition?”

Anders sighs. It's not an unexpected question – he's actually quite surprised it took Varric so long to ask. The dwarf enjoys digging for the motivating forces behind people – helps with his storytelling, he says. There have been more than a few nights at the Hanged Man – Isabela trying and failing to get him drunk – when he's heard Varric ask Hawke about one thing or another. What was her _motivation_ behind doing something. To which Hawke would often reply that he was going to make the whole story up anyway, so why answer? But she tells him anyway, though Anders is pretty sure that she normally makes up most of it herself.

“Well, I'm a Grey Warden,” he says instead of anything more revealing of his own thoughts. “Grey Wardens and darkspawn just go together. Like kittens and balls of yarn. Or the king of Ferelden and cheese.”

“The king and _cheese?_ ” Varric raises an eyebrow at him. “You're crap at metaphors, Blondie.”

“It's a _simile_ , thank you very much. And, for the record, King Alistair has an unhealthy obsession with cheese.”

“And you know this _how?_ ”

“The Hero of Ferelden told me,” he says, just a _little_ smugly. He'd picked up a lot of odd bits of information about the ruler of Ferelden thanks to the Commander's drunken ramblings. Not all of it was things that he was meant to hear, and not all of it was things that he had _wanted_ to know.

“You know,” says Varric, moving about a bit, seating himself more comfortably against the stone wall, “I get the feeling that you have a _lot_ of good stories from running around with the Wardens. You'll have to tell me them sometime.”

“What, you mean the ones the Wardens _wouldn't_ kill me for telling?” Anders gives a dry laugh and then sobers. “Who am I kidding, the Commander is going to kill me if I ever see her again.” He mumbles the last bit to himself, but Varric still hears it.

“No love lost between you and your former commander, I take it?”

Anders shakes his head slowly. He'd like to think that they had been friends – he'd considered _Nathaniel_ a friend, and he had been downright _surly_ to him on more than one occasion. He and the Commander had gotten on well enough. Better than well enough.

He feels a slight surge of affection from Justice as their thoughts turn to the Warden-Commander. Yes, she had been a friend. To both of them.

“It's more that she doesn't do too well with people... _leaving_ ,” he says. _Or with death_ , he doesn't say, but he remembers her face Varel had died. He remembers wishing that he'd been able to do something more, that he'd been there fast enough to save the man. “She's fun when she's drunk, though. At least, she is when she decides to be a happy drunk.” An odd though crosses his mind and he says it aloud before he can stop himself. “Wonder if Meredith is more fun when she's drunk. Wouldn't that be fun, getting all the Templars in Kirkwall drunk. Wonder if they'd start dancing. They've already got the skirts for it; they wouldn't have to dress up at all!”

Varric chuckles at that, but Anders's words trail off as he feels a wave of disapproval from Justice. It's only a feeling – though a strong one – with no words, but the intent is clear enough. _That was not amusing. Do not do that again_.

Justice does not understand humor. At least, not all of Anders' humor. And it is hard to continue to make quips and say irreverent things when there is a presence within his head that tells him not to. That disapproves of how he acts. Sometimes, it is easier to just not speak.

Varric is frowning at him now, heavy brows drawn together. “You just succeeded in getting me completely off topic. Didn't know you were that crafty.”

“It's a little known talent,” Anders says, and yawns, the bones in his jaw making a cracking sound that is loud to his ears. “I'm incredibly crafty. And sneaky.”

“You might as well answer my question. I'll stop bugging you with questions. About this topic, at least.”

He yawns again, eyes sliding shut for a moment. Maybe he'll actually fall asleep soon. “What was the question, again?”

“Why did you come on this expedition?”

Anders can most definitely feel himself slipping into sleep. “I wanted to...keep everyone safe...against the darkspawn.”

“ _Everyone?_ ” Varric asks, but Anders has _finally_ fallen asleep and does not hear him.

 

*

 

They find the path they were seeking shortly after they wake, and then it is the long trek back to where Bartrand and the rest of the expedition wait. Carver is still mildly in pain, his leg twinging now and again, though perhaps that is just from him remembering it being impaled by a dragon's tooth.

He might not be the biggest fan of Anders, but the mage certainly knows how to heal, and for that he is grateful.

They've only just got back to the rest of the group when one of the dwarves – the older one who actually has a decent beard on his face - comes running up to his sister, and smiles and words of gratitude.

“I can't tell you how glad I am that you found my son, Serah Hawke,” he says, clasping his hands before him. “I shudder to think what might have happened to him if you hadn't come across him.”

“I'm glad he was safe,” Ismat tells him. “But I don't think he needed our help. He seems quite capable.”

“Oh, that he is. But we are in your debt, Serah. If there's anything you need, just let us know.”

“That's kind of you, Bodhan,” she says, looking a bit shocked by just how serious the dwarf makes this sound, how much he seems to emphasize this debt. “But there's no need.”

“I won't take no for an answer, Serah. Anything you need, me and my boy can help.”

Ismat looks a bit helpless and Carver rolls his eyes. She should be _used_ to this by now, how she can do even the most simple thing for someone and they will start falling all over themselves to thank her properly. It's like Barlin back in Lothering used to say: Ismat got every ounce of charm from their father, Bethany got every drop of their mother's beauty, and Carver got whatever was left over.

He had thought that he would be able to make a name for himself by joining the King's army. And yet all he had gotten for that was a few scars that still hadn't faded and a long run from Ostagar home.

The expedition starts moving again, and Carver ends up talking with one of the mercenaries Bartrand had hired as part of his protection. The man doesn't speak as amazingly as Meeran does, and truth be told, Carver isn't that impressed by anyone that Bartrand has hired. Not that he's impressed by his sister's friends. Okay, that's a lie – he's _very_ impressed by Varric's chest hair. He'd be more impressed by Anders if the man would just shut up about mages every now and again.

And if the man would stop stealing glances at Carver's sister. That would be nice. Granted, he knows better than to step in between his sister and any man, not after the _last_ time he had thought it was his brotherly duty to do so – _that_ had resulted in Ismat giving him a black eye and then not speaking to him for a week. He'd been thirteen at the time.

Still, he's got to admit that it's kind of nice having a Warden with them. Though they've gotten better over the past year or so, he's had nightmares about darkspawn ever since Bethany's death. They don't come every night, and some are better than others, watching his twin sister be crushed to death by an ogre is something that has never left his mind. And it is that which made him insist that he come on this expedition, even if he could have remained in Kirkwall, trying to find a path for himself in his sister's absence. Because if he found out that his last sibling had died down here, he would never be able to forgive himself.

The way around the blocked tunnel is much faster this time around, with no ogres or dragons or darkspawn swarming about, and they make good time. They run into a few more batches of darkspawn, but then there is a point where they just seem to _vanish_ , and all they run into are shades.

They pass through caves that are no longer hallways, past veins of lyrium and crumbling stone, and eventually they make their way to an area that feels _old_. Well, older than what they had already traveled through. The air is stale, still, and the light comes only from lyrium and lava flows.

The first time they see the red lyrium veins, Ismat comes to a stop.

“Anders,” she says, not turning, just staring, the red glow highlighting the lines of her face. “Anders, you know more about lyrium than I do. Is this normal?”

The mage's brows are drawn close together as he leans closer to one of the veins. “I – no. There's something... _different_ about this. It... _sounds_ different.”

Ismat frowns, a rather confused look on her face. “ _Sounds_ different?”

Anders presses his fingers to the bridge of his nose. Carver would _swear_ that there is the slightest glow of blue that flickers over his skin, but it is gone to quickly to be absolutely certain. Still, he _knows_ what it means when the man starts glowing blue, and it's not a good thing. “Never mind,” he says, dropping his hand and stepping back from the lyrium. “It's not like the lyrium we saw before. That much, at least, is pretty apparent.”

But Ismat seems determined not to let the whole sound thing drop. “Anders, you can't say something like _'this lyrium sounds different'_ and expect me to _not_ ask you annoying questions about it. It's not a mage thing, is it? I mean, I know I didn't have the _best_ magical education, but I don't really remember my father saying anything about lyrium having a specific _sound_.”

“Could I just convince you that I never said that?” Anders tries, making some sort of pathetic face – Carver walks a little fast to pass them, so that, even if he has to _hear_ them, he doesn't have to actually watch them.

“Nope.” Ismat is probably grinning at him, Carver thinks.

“Well, then you'll just be disappointed.” There's something quite playful about the mage's voice. _Great_. They're flirting over _lyrium_. “It's one of my _secrets_. _Hey!_ Stop poking me!”

This is _far_ worse than the time Bethany had a crush on the herbalist's son. At least she had been too shy to do any _flirting_ then.

 _Sisters_.

Luckily, they arrive at the ancient thaig _before_ he gets too annoyed at them. And then they are _there_ , at the place this whole expedition had been set up to get to, and there's a long moment of silence where they all just _stare_ out over the abandoned structure, at the cracked and ruined columns and the red lyrium threaded about them.

They set up camp just outside of the thaig, getting things settled before they actually begin exploring it. And though he is tired of being under the ground and practically aching to see the sun again, Carver is _excited_. This is an ancient dwarven thaig, older than anything he's ever seen.

“Ready to go treasure hunting, little brother?” Ismat says, coming up to his side and smiling widely. “Who _knows_ what we're going to find here!”

“Darkspawn corpses and giant spiders,” he deadpans, and Ismat laughs.

“You're a ray of sunshine, Carver.” She claps him on the shoulder. “Come on, we've got dwarven ruins to explore!”

They don't take much with them – the bulk of their supplies are left at the camp. They take their weapons and water and food, but little else besides. Bedrolls, just in case something like the whole dragon incident happens again and they can't get back to camp for some time.

Inside the thaig is – well, it's _dustier_ , for one, and the air smells of rot and decay – even more amazing than seeing it from the outside. Carver doesn't know a thing about dwarven architecture, but this is _clearly_ different from what they've been traipsing through for the past weeks. Ismat keeps bounding from room to room, far more gleeful now that they've reached their destination, and she ends up finding a few bits of ancient technology that the group muses over for more time than they should, trying to figure out what it might possibly do. They give up after the third time 'nug launcher' is suggested, but her mood is infectious and everyone seems happier than they've been in days. It's almost enough to forget about the new scar on his leg.

They come to a heavy set of doors a couple of hours into searching the ruins, leading to a large room, with steps that lead up to an altar. And, when they reach it, there's another long moment where everyone just _looks_ at what lies atop it, some strange idol that seems to be carved out of that red lyrium they've been seeing everywhere.

Carver might not be a mage, but there's obviously something _wrong_ about it.

But Ismat picks it up and nothing bad happens and he breathes a sigh of relief. He half expected it to blow up in her face or turn her to stone or something – one can never tell with magical artifacts, or so his father always used to say when telling his outlandish tales of his adventures as an apostate on the run. A _young_ apostate on the run, rather.

And then everything _does_ blow up in their face. Not _literally_ , but in more of a very tangible locking of heavy doors.

As Varric rages about his brother and tries to get the door open, Carver can do nothing but stand there numbly. They're locked in.

 _They're locked in_.

“Stand back,” he hears Ismat say, and he glances her way to see her whips out her staff. “ _Move_ , Carver.”

“What are you-”

“ _Move_.”

He does, and Ismat flourishes her staff. He can _smell_ the electricity in the air, feel it on his skin, and it crackles around his sister. And then she casts it at the door.

It crashes against it, lightning dancing blue and purple and white over the metal and stone. It sparks and dazzles, but does _nothing_.

The pressure in the air changes now, so heavy that it almost chokes, and dust scatters around them as her magic slams against the door.

 _Nothing_.

“Anders, _help me_ ,” she says as she throws another spell at the door, this time stones that rebound and scatter around their feet.

“Hawke...”

“You're a better mage than me! Get over here and _help_.”

And she must be rattled to say something like that, he thinks, and there's a part of him that crows over her admitting something like that. At admitting she's not the best at something. The rest of him is still trying to process this, as well as the look on Anders' face which seems to suggest that he can't do anything to help with this.

He takes too long to do anything, and Ismat crosses the steps to his side and drags the older mage before the door.

“ _Do_ something,” she insists. Anders' hands tighten around his staff.

“Hawke, I _can't_ ,” he says. “Magic isn't going to open this door.”

The look of panic on his sister's face is barely contained, and she turns sharply towards the door, sparks gathering around her fingers again. She's about to cast again, but Anders catches her wrist. The lightning sputters and dies on her fingertips.

“ _Stop_ ,” he says, voice harsh, and, again, Carver swears he can see lines of blue momentarily flare into life on his skin. “That's not going to do anything. _All_ you're going to do is drain yourself.”

“I'm _not_ going to be _trapped_ in here!” his sister practically snarls, jerking her arm out of Anders' grasp.

“Hawke, Blondie's right,” Varric says, before she can resume casting. “That door's not going to open just because you threaten it with a fireball. We've got to find another path.”

“I wasn't threatening it with a fireball,” Ismat mutters, but her shoulders slump and she lets her staff fall. “I don't even _cast_ fireballs.”

“For which everyone is glad,” Carver says. “Come on, sister. Don't you have some amazing plan to get us out of this?”

The glare she gives him is absolutely poisonous, but she doesn't say anything to him. Which is probably good, given that it would just devolve into name calling at this point.

Ismat presses a hand against her face and breathes deeply several times. “Okay,” she says. “ _Okay._ We can do this. There has to be a way out of here.” Her head snaps up and she looks toward the altar. “A back door. There _has_ to be a back door.”

And there is.

 

*

 

Justice is absolutely _raging_ within his mind, and Anders' own anger is only making it worse.

 _What is she_ thinking _?_

He would have expected it from Merrill; for all her sweet and adorable ways, the elf is clueless when it comes to the dangers of demons. But _Hawke?_ She should _know_ better, should be able to recognize a demon's trickery.

She should _not_ be making deals with demons.

“What are you _doing?_ ” he hisses once they are out of sight of the overly eloquent profane, Justice barely contained within his skin. “That was a _demon_.”

“I know what it was,” she says, not pausing in her steps, and he increases his pace to keep up with her.

“Then why would you even _talk_ to it?”

“I'm getting us out of here,” is her reply, and the part of his mind that hasn't been swept up in anger is trying to rationalize this somehow. It's the lyrium, he thinks, grasping for something, _anything_. She wouldn't normally do this, but she touched that idol and it had _done_ something to her. Or she's inhaled too much lyrium dust, being in the Deep Roads so long.

She's cannot _possibly_ have just made a deal with a demon of her own free will. She _can't_ have.

“You should have killed it,” he insists, and she finally looks at him, jaw set, eyes narrowed.

“If you're that upset over this, go back and kill it yourself,” she tells him.

“That's not the _point_.”

She lets out a short breath of annoyance. “Look, I _avoided_ a fight and got us information. We can't just throw ourselves into every possible battle. We can't afford to.”

“ _We_ can't afford to make deals with demons, either!”

Hawke stops, shakes her head a bit, then turns to face him. “Anders, I didn't make a deal with it! Do you honestly think that I'm going to honor any 'deal' that I make with a demon? For Andraste's sake, Anders, I _know_ it's a demon! I'm not going to barter my soul away!”

“You can't take the risk!”

“I can, and I will.”

He can feel Justice slipping out with his anger, far too much emotion spilling out to keep it all contained. “This is the road of a blood mage,” he says, and Hawke jerks, nearly takes a step away from him as cracks of blue light being to trace his skin.

“Stop. Glowing.” Her voice is harsh and she has shifted her stance subtly so that she stands defensively. “Either yell at me as yourself, Anders, or I will consider this conversation to be _over_.”

It's like fighting against the current, pulling himself back to the forefront. It's a struggle, a difficult one, but eventually Justice settles into his mind again, and when Anders comes back to himself Hawke is still standing there, blue light no longer reflected on her face.

“Can you talk to me without Justice getting involved?” she asks him, and he doesn't know how to answer that. When he doesn't answer, she just shakes her head again. “Then don't talk to me.” She pivots on her heel and continues walking.

He watches her for several moments before he follows, trying to get everything under control. Justice is nowhere near quiet, and there's a thought that circles through his head. _Can't trust her anymore_.

Part of him wonders why her making this...this _arrangement_ with that demon is hitting him so hard, but that is a stupid question, even in his mind. It's for the same reason as why he joined this expedition in the first place.

 _She's not a blood mage_ , he tells himself. _We've never seen her use blood magic. She just...and that demon...she_...

They keep walking, picking their way over uneven ground and through old passages, and they manage to avoid most battles. One or two profane decide to wander too close, and Hawke dispatches them without seeming to give it a second thought. Then again, none of them try to offer her anything.

Has he really misjudged her so badly?

It takes some time, but they eventually reach the area that the demon had told them of – at least, he _assumes_ it's the area. It wouldn't put it past a demon to lie.

But even as they walk forward, there's the sound of stone scraping upon stone, and a panicked moment where they all look behind them to see something – a _rock wraith_ , Varric says – rising up behind them, like the demon they had seen before, like the profane, but _bigger_.

A _lot_ bigger.

“Oh, _Maker_ , this is _not_ good,” Hawke manages to say, before the creature strikes downward with the giant slab of stone that makes up one of its arms, missing her by inches. She staggers backwards, pulling her staff from her back as she does so. He sees her nearly trip over her own feet as she tries to move away.

The next strike sends both her and Varric sprawling.

“Not my _sister_ , you _bastard!_ ”

Carver rushes past him, placing himself between his sister and the monstrosity, blade brought up to catch the next strike; his feet skitter across the ground as he tries to brace himself, the rock wraith's blow so hard that Anders can see the tremors run through the boy's arms.

And then there's no time to be angry at her, only time to move and to cast, sketching a glyph before him in the air, trying to buy them some time by paralyzing the wraith.

It shakes off the magic like it is nothing but air.

It's Carver who gives them all enough time to get to their feet, to move far enough out of range that he and Hawke have the time to cast properly, for Varric to take aim and fire. The boy strikes at the rock construct, chipping away at it's base. Its large stone talons swipe at him again and again, but he manages to avoid most.

Anders has never fought a creature like this before – never even _seen_ one. He thinks he remembers Sigrun mentioning the name – _rock wraith_ – before, some old dwarven myth used to scare children. He tries using ice – tries to slow its movements. Beside him, Hawke draws her staff through the air, a cage of white light forming around the wraith. It does little to stop it, but the combined spells slow it just enough that Carver has time to move away from it as it tries to hit him once more. He sweeps out with his sword and the wraith _crumbles_.

There's a moment where they all stare at it.

“Well,” says Carver, breathing raggedly. “That wasn't too bad.”

“I expected something more,” Hawke says, taking a step toward her brother. And then she stops, eyes widening. “Carver, _move!_ ”

The wraith is not dead, not even close, and it coils in upon itself, rising up from the ground in a tight ball, light that is red like the strange lyrium that is all around them coalescing around it.

When it hits, none of them are ready.

It feels like his skin is one fire – something that has happened to him more times than he would like to admit, so he knows the comparison is sound – and his body bows forward, seeking some way out of the red light that fills the air. Pain covers every inch of him, but he looks up to see one of the pillars, and he thinks that the light doesn't reach there.

It hurts, but he moves, reaching behind him and grabbing Hawke by the arm and dragging her after him – Varric is too far from them, and Carver is caught in the thick of it – taking step after step until clear light breaks over his head and he stumbles forward, Hawke tumbling after him, crashing against his legs, and they slump against the cave wall.

“Carver!” she gasps out, pushing herself up, her hand pressing painfully into his midsection as she uses the leverage to get to her feet. “ _Carver!”_

He catches her by the wrist before she can dash back out into the red light emitting from the rock wraith. “That's not going to help him, Hawke!”

“Let me _go! Carver!_ ”

It's the most panicked that he has ever seen her, and from where they stand he can see both Varric and Carver writhe within the light. Anders pulls himself to his feet, still holding her, still keeping her from doing something _incredibly_ stupid. But they're not going to make it, not if this doesn't stop, and he doesn't know if it will.

He gathers magic, directing it toward the two of them, and he can just see the healing glow that forms around them. It won't do much, but it _will_ help.

And then, as soon as it has started, the air clears and they can move freely.

“We _have_ to take that thing down quickly,” Hawke yells to the others as she move out from behind the pillar.

“Do you have anything more obvious to say?” Varric says, his voice strained.

“Sister, we have _more_ company.”

There are more of the profane around them and the rock wraith is moving again. Too many – but Hawke is moving with determination now, her magic dragging at the creatures and slowing their movements, allowing for Carver and the rest to take them down as fast as possible.

They figure out the signs that tell them that painful red light is about to appear again and they rush to hiding places in those moments, and Anders uses that time to heal them all as best he can. They are growing tired fast, but the rock wraith appears to be faltering more and more, and it is only a matter of time before it falls, Hawke's magic and Carver's sword finally bringing it down.

The world tilts rather hazily before his eyes when it is done, and he feels drained and fatigued, too much magic spent over too short a time period. But they are all still standing – well, Carver is _sitting_ , but it is more to catch his breath than because he is terribly injured. Hawke crouches beside him and the boy doesn't shove her away.


	4. Chapter 4

She kills the demon.

Anders is, somehow, incredibly stunned by this. It’s unexpected. It throws him in that same way that _so_ many of Hawke’s actions throw him - he expects one thing, anticipates the course of events, and then Hawke does something completely different.

_She killed it._

The thought keeps repeating itself in his head, and he knows part of it is Justice. The anger from earlier is still there, but muted by confusion.

Perhaps it shouldn’t surprise him; Hawke is a strong mage, though her magic runs wild and raw. She has an iron will hidden behind all that sarcasm; were she a Circle mage, he would not have worried about her going through her Harrowing for one moment, save for...well.

Save for how she had seemed to make a deal with that demon only an hour or so earlier.

She is so blithe about it. There is a smile on her face when she tells Varric to shoot it, and she follows the crossbow bolt up with a bright bolt of electricity that singes the rocks around them. He feels the bite of it against his skin, but it is all for the demon; her magic brings it down and it dies.

When it lies at their feet, a pile of rubble no longer inhabited by anything more than dust, Hawke turns to him. She looks...not angry. Not _quite_ angry. But her eyes are thoroughly unimpressed, and she is looking right at him.

“Are you happy now?” she asks him, and the tight, harsh timbre of her voice brings him to a standstill. Justice falls silent in his head, but he can feel him, so close to the surface. He wants to hear this; they both do. “Have I adequately disposed of this demon?”

“It does appear to be _quite_ dead,” Anders says lightly, and her mouth twists. One brow drops down just slightly; the skin between her brows creases.

She takes a step forward, towards him. And another. She is close, just enough to be threatening.

“I do hope that you won’t be so quick to write me off as a blood mage next time,” she says, and _now_ her voice is cold. “Just as I was not so quick to write _you_ off as an abomination.”

His breath stills in his chest. He feels profound disbelief from Justice, then confusion. Something that speaks of anger and hurt.

 _Oh, this is...not good_.

“Well, what do you expect, acting like you’re making deals with demons?” he says, and if he tries for humor he fails miserably. Hawke’s brows draw down further. Her cheeks hollow, the lines of her cheekbones standing out sharply as she sucks in her breath. One step forward and she is right in front of him.

“Did you _see_ me make a deal, Anders?” she asks him. “Did you see me sign it in blood? Did I draw a knife and cut myself and say _oh, by the way, I’ve just consigned myself to being the host for a demon?_ Because last I checked I didn’t make _any_ deal. I know myself, Anders. I know what I say. And if _you_ -” and here she raises her hand and she _pokes_ him, hard, in the chest, “- what to pass judgement on me, you go right ahead. If _you_ think you know what I’m doing, sure, fine, you can think what you want. But until you see me slicing up my hands and actually calling on demons, don’t you _dare_ consider me a blood mage.”

She looks at him for a long moment, eyes narrow, jaw clenched, and it is such a tense, charged moment. Justice is...Anders cannot quite read him in that moment, he only knows that he is very close to the surface.

“I -” he begins to say, but a shout from Varric draws both of their attention.

“Hawke! Quit being confrontational and come look at _this!_ We’re not going home empty handed!”

Hawke turns away from him, and everything Anders has to say dies in his throat.

 

*

 

They find _so much_. The air of defeat and despair that has been following them since Bartrand locked the door behind them lifts as Hawke and Varric rifle through the cache of treasure.

And treasure it _is_ \- gold and jewels, enough to set them both on a path of wealth. Quite apart from that, there are artifacts, old and finely crafted. Weapons, mostly, but a few that aren’t, all of which would surely sell for a high price on the surface.

“Just _think_ of what we can do with all of this!” Hawke is all smiles, feeling happier than she has in days. She’s got handful of gems and jewelry in her hands. “This - this solves _everything_.”

“Money solving everything? Who would have thought.”

Hawke rolls her eyes at Varric, but she is having a _good_ moment and she’s not going to let him ruin this for her. “How long do you think it would take to get the estate back if we come back with all of _this?_ ”

Carver’s even smiling - Carver, her grumpy little brother, is smiling. “Should make mother happy.”

And that makes Hawke smile even brighter.

But that is it, right there, the reason behind everything. They both know it. Hawke admits that she has had small fantasies about having money, about having a house even nicer than the one they had in Lothering, but the life of a noble that her mother has spoken of is beyond her. And Carver - he’d told her of his hopes, once, how he wanted to be part of the King’s Guard. All that is dashed now, Lothering is burnt and they are long from Ferelden, and so _this_ is what they have. Their mother’s dream, their mother’s happiness - and Hawke is okay with that.

She wants so much for her mother to be happy. After losing father, after losing Bethany, their mother deserves anything that they can give her. Maybe, just maybe, this can start to...if not make up for her failures to keep her family safe, at least it can make things better for them going forward.

They load as much into their packs as they can carry. Hawke tries not to think about why they have _so_ much room to carry things. She tries not to think about how low their supply of food has fallen. By the Maker, she is trying to be _happy_ and _optimistic_ and she is _not_ going to dwell right now.

She is also quite determinedly ignoring Anders. She doesn’t want to think on that at all. She doesn’t want to think of how he had, for even a moment, though she might turn to blood magic.

The packs are heavy, but this is the culmination of this entire trip. This is the _goal_ , this is what they were looking for. Even if they never see any of the other odds and ends that they picked up prior to being forcefully separated from the rest of the expedition, this will be enough.

Once they have as much as they can possibly carry, they head out. There is a door leading out of the cavern, and with no other way to go it is, quite literally, their only option. So they take it, and Hawke leads them on.

She has no idea where they are, only that, in theory, there should be _some_ way out. If they just keep following the paths through the earth, they _should_ find one that leads up and to the sun. That’s what she _has_ to believe.

She has never missed the sky so much in her life.

 

*

 

It has been three days, and their food supplies have continued to run ever lower. Hawke’s initial enthusiasm has dimmed quite a lot; what good is treasure and wealth if they never make it to the surface?

They stop for a rest in a portion of the caverns that is somewhat defensible. They have begun to find more developed portions of the Deep Roads once again, but this area shows little signs of past life, the stone unmarred by dwarven hand.

There is lyrium here, too, running like blue veins through the rock. It makes Hawke’s skin itch to be so close to it.

They settle down, and Varric portions out food. They do not have much; Hawke eats enough to dull the pang of hunger in her stomach, but no more. The rest she packs carefully; with no knowledge of when - or _if_ \- they will find more food, they must be incredibly sparring with what they have.

“Do you think, Varric, that there are any nugs down here? I’ve been told they are quite a delicacy when roasted,” she says as she counts, once more, exactly how much food they have left between the three of them.

“We haven’t seen any nug shit in days, but I’ll let you know if I step in any. I’ll tell you, I never thought that I’d be _upset_ by a lack of nug shit.”

“Me either.” Hawke closes up her pack, then leans back against the cave wall. “You should all get some sleep. I’ll take first watch.”

There is no disagreement, for which she is glad. Everyone is exhausted, everyone is hungry, everyone wants nothing more than to be out of the Deep Roads. As she takes up a position where she can see more of the cavern, the rest of the group unroll now-filthy bedrolls and by the time she glances back at them, they all appear to be asleep.

Hawke sits there on an outcropping of stone, feet stretched out before, staff resting beside her. Her coat is open, the wool just a little too warm for her in the stuffy, enclosed areas of the Deep Roads. There are heat vents somewhere near them, or the rivers of molten stone that they had passed by earlier in the expedition - she cannot find where the heat comes from, but it is there. Between that and the hazy light of the lyrium, she feels too warm and too grimy, and she feels almost in a dream state despite being awake.

There is one vein of lyrium that she finds herself staring at as her watch wears on. Her eyes unfocus slightly as she gazes at it, the bright blue lines etching after images into her eyes. When she blinks, she can still see it. Her skin buzzes, her fingertips feel warm like magic is collecting there.

She knows better than to touch lyrium in its raw form. Her father had impressed the dangers upon her early. Looking at the lyrium now, she can understand how someone could reach out and grasp it even knowing that it would kill them.

She feels like she could slip into the Fade right now. Between the warmth of the cavern and the echoes of the lyrium, she feels...distant. Removed. So much so that when someone moves behind her, she is startled enough to strike out with her staff without realizing what the sound is.

Thankfully, she does not use magic. If she had, she feels like everything might have gone up in a blaze of light.

Instead, her staff clacks harmlessly off another; Anders is not quite as out of it as she is and has moved fast enough to place his staff before him so her does not glance off his legs instead.

“Careful there,” he says with a sort of half smile on his lips. “While it’s wonderful to see you so vigilant, I _should_ remind you that we are on the same side here.”

Hawke makes a sort of stuttered squeaking sound instead of any coherent response and pulls her staff back.

“You startled me, is all,” she says, resting her staff where it was before, her fingers still curled around it. “What are you doing up, anyway?”

He steps up beside her, then sits down on another outcropping of stone. He’s left off the outer shell of his coat, she notices; his arms are bare and his tunic is absolutely filthy, the bottom edge a ratty, torn mess. He rests the crescented darkspawn staff he now carries against his thigh.

“I thought that I’d relieve your watch,” he says. She raises an eyebrow. “Also, I couldn’t sleep.”

Hawke has tried to ignore him for the past few days, something that has been very hard given that they have all been constantly in close proximity to one another. Still, his suspicion and anger over the entire thing with that rock demon had been hurtful in a way she doesn’t like one bit. She’s starting to get to the point where the only one she wants to talk to is Varric, and even then they are all on edge, tired and hungry and ready to be done with this.

Maker, but she wants to get out of the earth and see the sun once more. Maybe then she’ll feel like being around _anyone_ again.

Still, she’s got enough sense to not pick a fight. Not yet, anyway.

She takes a good look at him, at his matted hair and the dust and dirt on his skin. He looks tired and pinched, but his eyes are bright.

“Couldn’t sleep, huh. Who can, down here?”

“Varric and your brother, obviously.” He stretches his legs out before him, heels of his boots drawing lines in the dust on the ground. “I don’t think they’re as bothered by….well.”

Both of Hawke’s eyebrows go up. “I think we’re _all_ bothered,” she says, and her voice is probably a _little_ too harsh.

“I meant by the lyrium,” Anders says after a moment.

“Oh.”

“ _Oh_ indeed.” He pushes a hand through his hair, then makes a face, wiping his palm against his filthy tunic. For a few long moments, they sit in silence.

“So,” Hawke starts, grasping for something to say. Now that she has something other than the lyrium to focus on, she feels awake and alert, more so than before. Still hungry and worn, but awake. “The lyrium. Can you...you said something about hearing it.”

Anders gives a small snort of a laugh. “I knew you’d bring that up again. I can’t sneak anything past you, Hawke.”

“Not forever, no. I’m annoying persistent like that.”

He hooks his hands around one knee and leans back, looking up at the veins of lyrium that score the ceiling of the cave. “I probably don’t even need to ask, but you can’t hear it, right?”

Hawke shakes her head. “Nope. I can...well, _feel_ it probably isn’t quite the right word, but there’s _something_ there.”

Anders still has his head tipped back, and the light of the lyrium illuminates his profile, the harsh lines of his jaw, the long stretch of his nose. He hasn’t shaved in some days and his cheeks are dark with stubble.

“I couldn’t hear it before,” he says, and a breath catches in Hawke’s throat. She doesn’t dare speak; Anders doesn’t always talk like this, of _himself_ , of _before_. Bits and pieces, yes, but so rarely. “The first time I went into the Deep Roads, it was...well. Very likely what you are experiencing. I knew the lyrium was there, but it was silent. I didn’t know it was singing.”

“...singing?”

He tips his head to look at her. There is an odd little smile that graces his mouth. “It sings,” he tells her. “It is very beautiful. I never knew that, until…” He touches two fingers to his temple, and it takes Hawke a moment to realize what he means.

“Justice can hear it?”

He nods. “When we were Wardens - well, when he and I weren’t...together...he had a ring. The Warden Commander was always giving us things, you see. Things she thought we would like. It was very sweet of her. She had a way, with all of us, making us feel...wanted. Needed.”

“Oh.”

“She gave Justice a ring,” he continues, adjusting his legs so that he sits more comfortably. “It contained a piece of lyrium. Just one piece, very small. Justice showed it to me once. I couldn’t touch it, obviously - but it was very pretty. We had to leave it behind, when…” He swallows, hard. “I like to think that, if the Warden-Commander had stayed, things would have been better. Even with the blighted Deep Roads, I might have wanted to stay.”

Hawke finds a bit more of her voice. “...you said they took away your cat?” she asks him, as gently as she can. His smile turns sadder.

“Something like that,” he says, but he doesn’t elaborate. Hawke wonders if he ever will.

The silence that stretches between them then is a little more comfortable. After a moment, Hawke tips her head back, looking up at the lyrium that sparkles in the ceiling. It looks like stars, and for a moment, she can pretend that she is outside, that she is free of this oppressive stone and earth.

“I...we... _I_ wanted to apologize,” Anders says then, and Hawke jerks, straightens, looks at him with wide eyes.

“Huh?”

That small laugh is back on his lips. “If you’re surprised by me apologizing, I suppose it means that I’ve now just reminded you that I need to be apologizing for _something_. Still, we - _I_ \- would feel bad if I didn’t.”

“And just _what_ are you apologizing for?” She folds her hands neatly in her lap, looking at him, waiting. She sees him glance at her from the corner of his eye, then look away again.

“I - we - well. With that demon - I was...very quick to anger. I’m afraid that demons is another one of those things I have very strong feelings about, and you didn’t deserve that. You’re right - you’re not a blood mage. So...consider this an apology for me being a complete ass.”

Well. That was unexpected. “Mmmm. Well. Apology accepted.” Then she squints at him. “You kept saying _we_.”

Anders grimaces. “Er. Yes.”

“ _And? Why?”_

He nervously pushes his hand through his filthy, matted hair again. “If I said that Justice has been having his own feelings of an apologetic nature, would that...be of any interest to you?”

Her eyebrows feel like they’re climbing up her forehead, that’s how surprised she is. “Ah.” She swallows, blinks. “That’s unexpected.”

“I thought so, too.”

She frowns, glances at him, looks away. “I thought you two were, you know, of the same mind.”

“...it’s terribly complicated.” When she looks back at him, he’s looking away again. “Either way, we’re both apologetic about how we acted, so…”

“Thank you,” she says, and he looks back at her. She reaches out and her fingers brush the back of his hand. His eyes have gone wide. “I’m not going to lie, you pissed me off pretty badly when you did that. The blood magic accusation thing, not the apology.”

“I figured that out when you yelled at him,” he admits, and again there is almost a laugh in his voice, though of the self deprecating sort. “I just -”

“Justice has strong feelings about demons, doesn’t he?” she says, and the little start Anders gives makes her think she is right even before he answers.

“Well, he _is_ a spirit. They’re sort of natural enemies.”

Hawke looks away from him again, back to the lights of the lyrium. A thought sits in the back of her mind, one she’s been dwelling on since that moment with the demon. “I don’t ever plan to turn to blood magic,” she tells him then. “Never. It’s not something I want, it’s not something I need. I can get along just fine without demons. But I…” And here she stops, swallows. Her mouth feels very dry, and the air very, very warm. She thinks, _does she trust him enough?_ She thinks what she is about to say could be very foolish.

“Anders,” she says, and she hopes her voice does not waver. “If I ever fall to demons and blood magic, if I ever become an abomination - I want you to kill me.”

Everything is silent. She is intensely aware of the air around her, of the lyrium, of the weight of the stones that surround them. She doesn’t look at Anders’ face. She doesn’t want to see.

“Well, now I feel even more an ass,” he says by way of response. Hawke gives a short bark of laughter.

“Not what I expected you to say.” She dips her head down, the laughter still caught in her chest. She waits until it subsides before she speaks more. “I can’t promise that, given circumstances, I won’t speak with demons like you saw me do before. But that should tell you that I don’t - I don’t want to fall to blood magic.”

Anders is quiet again, for a long moment. She glances at him, at his furrowed brow, at the contemplative look on his face.

“I feel like I should say something akin to _that_ ,” he finally says, voice soft. “But as you know, my situation is so different from yours. But there is...there is always a chance…” He stops and she sees him take a deep breath. “It is possible that, one day, I will corrupt Justice so much that -”

“No, you won’t,” Hawke finds herself saying, some sort of strange, tight feeling in her chest as she hears it say that. Anders looks to her and she looks back, and she stares at him with a tightly set jaw and thinks that she sees a flicker of light in his eyes.

“If I _do_ , Hawke, then I -” He falters. “Please.”

Hawke holds his gaze for a long moment, and then she nods. “All right.”

Then she looks away, back at the little stars of lyrium on the ceiling, and together they sit in silence.

 

*

 

Two more days. Their supplies dwindle, as do their spirits. They fight and they walk. They take a wrong turn and find a dead end.

The surface feels so far away.

 

*

 

Carver knows something is wrong after the last darkspawn attack. At first, he passes it off as hunger and fatigue - they are down to the very last of their supplies, and only Anders’ magic provides them any water now. He feels hot and faint, and his skin itches, and he begins to lag ever more behind his sister. The pack he carries is a deadweight on his back.

Still, he has to press onward. It’s just fatigue - it’s just the Deep Roads finally getting to him. He can push through it, he knows that. He survived Ostagar, he can survive this.

He focuses on his sister’s back, keeps his eyes on one constant spot. Puts one foot in front of another as his head begins to ache, as _something_ begins to crawl through his veins. He feels on fire, like someone has poured molten rock into him. His palms sweat and itch and everything feels tight and _wrong_.

He looks at his hand and his vision blurs, but he thinks he sees something crawling beneath his skin, ink spreading under the surface.

“Sister,” he says, and he trips, the world slides, blurs, falls.

He hears her as from a distance, his name shouted, a cry torn from her. His knees hit the ground, hard enough to bruise, and he slumps to the side. The pack slides from his shoulder; his sword clatters against stone.

Ismat’s hands are like ice against his skin; he is burning. It is hard to concentrate on what she is saying, but he can hear her, he can hear Anders, he can hear Varric. His sister’s voice rises ever higher, worry and fear so apparent and Carver thinks _oh, something that finally shakes my sister_ and he wants to laugh.

 _The Grey Wardens_ , he hears, and he manages to latch on to that. _A chance to live. The Taint in his blood. Wardens in the Deep_.

He looks to his sister. Her eyes are wide, and she looks -

_Young and frightened and small -_

He does not want to die. So he nods. Filth fills his lungs, crawls beneath his skin. _Taint, tainted, dying._

He does not want to die.

The pain and fever and _taint_ blind him, thick in his veins like poison. His feet drag; his sister carries him. She is so strong, better than him, and he _hates_ her.

Stone over his head, taint in his blood. His sister’s arm around his waist, freezing him. He remembers the Templar, a knife slipped under his breastbone. A mercy. A death.

Each step hurts. He looks at his hand again, his arms. He looks ashen, grey, like death. Black veins beneath his skin.

 _Carver_. _Carver. Brother. Hold on_.

The mage - the one he dislikes - magic and soot and ash. He sees him through a disjointed haze; he feels like he sees everything through a veil. He speaks, but his voice is distant. His sister says something - _brave, strong, he hates her, he loves her -_ and there is someone else. Cold steel and blue cloth and a griffon emblazoned on his chest.

 _Grey Wardens_.

_Carver._

“I will be fine, sister,” he hears himself say. He smiles. “It’s not like we have any other choice.”

Ismat’s eyes are wide. She trembles.

 _Carver_.

The Wardens take him. He doesn’t look back.

 

*

 

She stands there for a long time after they take Carver, eyes trained on the last spot that he had been. Anders watches her, the tight lines of her body, the immovable cast of her face. Her eyes are wide, but dry.

“We should...go,” she says after a time, but her feet stay rooted. He has never seen her so still. “We know where to go now. We should...go.”

“There’s no shame in taking time, Hawke.” Varric stands to the side, both Carver and Hawke’s pack at his feet. The dwarf has been carrying them since Carver first fell; Hawke hasn’t even noticed.

“We need to go. We don’t have any more supplies.” Her jaw is quivering, her hands clenched tightly at her sides.

It’s true. They don’t. Anders says nothing on that; it’s not the time.

“Hawke.”

“I said we need to _go_.” Her voice is harsh, and it cracks. She turns, strides towards the way Stroud had directed them. Towards the way out. “We’re wasting time. There’s nothing more to do here.”

She walks. So they follow.

He cannot tell her what he knows, the warden secrets that he has to keep. He had only hinted before, that Carver might still not survive. He can say nothing of what becoming a warden will do to her brother, how even if he lives he will be forever tainted. That one day he will die terribly as the taint in his blood consumes him.

Hawke’s shoulders hitch as she walks; he can see fine tremors running through her. But she keeps walking, keeps going. One foot in front of another, over and over.

Anders looks to Varric, who is also watching her with a worried expression on his face. He catches him looking his direction and shakes his head; they say nothing to each other.

There’s really nothing to say.

Anders wonders if the boy will make it. He’s strong, but he knows that strength isn’t always enough. He remembers Mhairi - she was strong. She still died.

He won’t tell Hawke that.

They keep walking. It is easier now, back on an actual path, back where there are signs of past life. Hawke doesn’t falter. Anders thinks he understands - sometimes, there are things more important than grief. More important than any emotion. You push on until you can no longer go any further, because you have to.

Still, he cannot stop himself from worrying.

She does not stop for even a rest, not for a long time, and then, suddenly, she puts out a hand and presses it to the wall and she _slumps_. Anders has already taken three quick steps towards her side before she speaks.

“I’m sorry,” she tells them, and Maker’s breath, why is she apologizing to _them?_ “I wasn’t even thinking - you both need to rest, I’m certain.”

“We’re fine, Hawke,” Anders says, and he finally reaches her. Her face is drawn and pinched, and she looks even more exhausted than before, deep smudges beneath her eyes. She does not look at him.

“Why don’t you take a break, Hawke?” Varric takes the moment to set the packs down against the wall. “I’m sure _you_ could use one.”

“I’m fine,” she says. Anders sets a hand to her shoulder; he can feel her shake.

“ _Hawke_.”

“I’m fine,” she repeats, but then her legs give out and she slides down the wall. She sits there, stunned, blinking up at him. “Don’t look at me like that.”

Anders crouches down beside her. “I’m just worried about you, Hawke,” he tells her, quite truthfully.

She shuts her eyes and the breath she draws in is unsteady. “Please, don’t be.”

“I just want to make sure you’re all right, okay?” When she nods, he sets his hand against the side of her head. Little threads of magic seep from him into her, winding through her body. He can feel the buildup of pressure behind her eyes, an ache in her skull. He can do nothing for the causes behind it - grief and exhaustion and hunger - but he can wipe away the pain for now, and he does so. She shivers as his magic sweeps through her, and when he stops she leans back against the wall, her eyes still shut.

“Thank you.” For all that she tries to keep her voice steady, it wavers.

Varric comes over to them; he doesn’t need to crouch to be on level with Hawke. “I’m going to scout ahead,” he says softly. “Maybe see if there’s any sign that we’re almost out.”

Hawke’s eyes fly open at that, and she grabs his hand. “No, don’t,” she says, sharp and short and desperate. “There could be more darkspawn, we can’t -”

“I don’t sense any darkspawn here. He’ll be fine.”

The look she gives both of them is wild and lost. Varric squeezes her hand.

“I’ll be fine. I’ve got Bianca to look out for me,” he says, and Hawke nods.

“Best bodyguard you can have.” A smile tries to form on her mouth. It fails, dies there, and she just looks so _lost_. It’s the only word he has for it.

Anders and Varric exchange a look before the dwarf heads out; neither of them have seen Hawke like this before, never seen her after a loss. They are both worried.

He doesn’t have any words to say, and Justice is quiet in his head. Anything they could say seems...inadequate, at best.

He wishes he could assure her that Carver will be fine. He can’t.

Hawke doesn’t say anything; she breathes deeply, chest rising and falling. Her eyes stay shut and no tears escape them.

Anders sits, eventually, his back against the wall beside her. There is silence between them, only the sound of each of them breathing.

“I’m sorry, Hawke,” he says eventually, when the silence has gone on too long. “I wish there was more I could have done.”

“Me, too,” Hawke says, and her voice is soft and full of unshed tears. But her hand finds his and holds tight. “But you...did what you could. A chance for a life with the wardens is...is better than no chance at all. So thank you. You did better at protecting him than I ever did.”

“That’s not true.”

She releases a tight, short breath, but says nothing. Her hand doesn’t leave his and he doesn’t pull away.

They sit like that for a long time, until the sound of footsteps breaks the quiet.

“I hope you like good news,” they both hear Varric say, and Hawke’s eyes fly open. “Because I have some.”

They look, and there stands the dwarf - and two more. Bodhan and Sandal, the two who had been with the party.

“We were wondering if you were still down here,” Bodhan says, wringing his hands before him. “Me and my boy, we weren’t going to just head out until we knew you were all right. This route is the only way out, as far as I know - we knew you had to come through here at some point.”

Hawke presses a hand to her mouth; she gasps, she laughs. “Of all the perfect timing,” she says. “I have never been happier to see anyone in my entire life.”

“Varric here tells me you’re all out of supplies. We left our cart when he told us you were here, but it’s not far. I’m sure a nice meal and some drink will do you a world of good.”

Hawke laughs. She laughs and she laughs, and she falls against Anders, her face buried in his feather covered shoulder and she shakes.

“We’re going to be all right,” she says after some time, when the laughter has died away. “We’re really going to be all right.”

 

*

 

The sun is bright in the sky, blinding them all. He feels it upon his skin, draws in deep breaths of air; he can smell the sea.

Varric feels _right_ for the first time in weeks.

Beside him, Hawke tips her face up towards the sun. There is an unsteady smile on her mouth, but then she relaxes and the smile turns real.

“I didn’t think we’d ever be out of there,” she says. “No offense, Varric, but I do _not_ understand anyone who would want to live underground.”

“None taken, my dear Hawke. I don’t understand it either. Though I will be much happier once we’re back in Kirkwall; I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I miss the smell of the Hanged Man.”

“The smell of ale and piss?” Hawke laughs. “I miss it too. Strange, that.”

“What about you, blondie? Do you miss the smell of ale and piss?”

Varric sees Anders smile at that. “You know, now that you’re all mentioning it, I _do_.”

“Good, that settles it. Hanged Man, piss-poor drinks on me. Blondie, don’t even think about going back to Darktown yet.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Varric,” Anders says. “Really, who _wouldn’t_ want to go to the Hanged Man after a nightmarish trip through the Deep Roads? Though even Darktown would be much better after _that_.”

“ _Anything_ would be better,” Hawke says, and for a moment it almost appears like she will laugh over the rest of the conversation, but then her expression shutters and falls. “I’ll join you two, I just...first…” She looks away, looks back to the exit of the Deep Roads, and she sighs.

“I just need to tell my mother that I’ve lost her only son,” she says, and, really, to that, there’s nothing else anyone can say.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, three years after I first started writing it, this story is done. It was always intended to be a fleshing out of the Deep Roads and what occurred there, filling out more of the character relationships. Hopefully I have done so all right, and hopefully this last chapter fits well enough with the first few.
> 
> As it stands, this now functions as something of a first chapter for The Gravity Well series, which will continue to have individual stories added to fill out the specifics of this particular Hawke.
> 
> Thank you all for reading!


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